New Scam on the horizon or plain error?

[VaSteve]

Anyone heard of this? It sounds like it could be a scam, but I can't figure out how it would work if it was.

Last month, my mom checked her bank account and found a mysterious $4800-something deposit. She didn't make it, it was apparently a transfer in from the Bank of Scotland. The bank researched it and it was deposited by some clothing company she'd never heard of. She took a cruise last week and saw the name of this company somewhere during her travels. As typical with my mom, spelling and exact names of parties are blurred or confused in these oral descriptions so I have little googleable material.

So the question is, if this is an errant deposit, why would it come from Bank of Scotland to a US bank in the account of a retired person. I was in banking for a little while, I recall that there are two types of accounts for personal/retail and commercial. If this is an error, how'd she wind up with it? If it's a scam, what's the angle? It's clearly not the "I'll send you $10K, you send me back $4500" we're used to seeing.

[stomachmonkey]

Maybe it's a "loan."

You ever get those checks in the mail from a credit card co.?

"Use them for whatever you want!" At 50% interest compounded hourly.

[juanbenae]

something like that happened to me while playing monopoly once. the sum of the bank error i experienced was a mere $200 though.

T$

[allaircooled]

Damm, wish someone would deposit $4500 in my account. Wonder what the deal is on this.

[Danny_Ocean]

I remember, at the onset of modern "banking scams" (early 90's), there was one that involved people depositing stolen checks in accounts of unsupecting people (typically the elderly). Once the check would "clear", they would withdraw the funds, leaving the account holder on the hook once the check really cleared.

In this instance, sounds more like a mistake. I would ask the bank to put a temporary freeze on the account (no deposits, no withdrawals), until you discover the source of the funds and their legitimate owner.

[Porsche]

Whatever happens, your mom should not use the money, as it belongs to a third party. Let the bank sort it out.

[VincentVega]

temporary freeze on the account

Good idea. It's possible some one has access to her account. Of course, it could also be an error the bank will fix with no problem. When it comes to banking/credit I'd error on the cautious side.

[JV911SYDNEY]

Originally Posted by Porsche

Let the bank sort it out.

+1


if work in the finance sector and know that its not uncommon

its quite easy for someone to put the wrong refernce number on a transfer and for the $ to end up in the wrong a/c...especially when you have monkeys working in backoffice/clearing